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31 January 2013

An Excerpt from Islands and Insulin in Three Installments

6 April 1996

La Jolla, CA

I close my eyes
and I can still see that moment years before, when it all changed. It’s as
clear as yesterday, and yet it seems a lifetime away. The symptoms were there,
but they weren't anything I really paid any attention to. Being only nineteen,
I was not tuned in to what my body was trying to tell me. My time was spent
ditching college classes and surfing and hanging out with friends.

I was never one
to drink water, never really liked the taste. Apple juice, chocolate milk, Dr
Pepper, now those were worthy of drinking. Water just seemed like a waste of
time. But I started drinking it by the boat load, craving it really. I couldn’t
sit through a Physics lecture without getting up at least three times to drink
from the fountain (this was in the days before carrying a PBA-free water bottle
everywhere was in fashion).

With all the
extra water came all the extra bathroom trips. At least, that’s what I thought
was causing my nocturnal wanderings towards the toilet. I tried to explain it
away. It’s just the heat. It was spring and the weather was heating up.

As I got up for
the third time to miss yet another section of the lecture, and was forced to
drink out of that overused, under-cleaned shiny metal box of cooled tap water,
I told myself the lecture was just really boring and I was looking for a way to
stay awake. Physics was my favorite subject though, so I don’t know how I
convinced myself of that one. Maybe it was just the best explanation I could
come up with at the time.

To make matters
worse, I was studying for finals in the thick of it all. I spent one evening
with my roommate, Martha, at the food court on campus so that we would have
easy access to the soda machine while we studied. I never developed a taste for
coffee, so my study drink of choice was Dr Pepper. I must have had about eight,
twenty-ounce drinks that night. And that wasn’t Diet. Diet was for fools.
It was all real for me.

After studying that
night, I couldn’t find a way to slow down to get some rest. I lay in that state
between awake and asleep when thoughts run amok and you can’t control them and
you can only sit and watch them run all over the place and make no sense at
all.

My dreams that
night were filled with Organic Chemistry equations. The kind where two types of
molecules in their 3-D structure are blended into an entirely new molecule. They
were converting over and over again in front of me, taunting me with every
conversion.

I assumed the
insomnia was due to stress and finals. The minor symptoms I was feeling didn’t
register as the beginnings of anything serious until I was riding my bike home
from school the next week and came to Hell Hill. Most of my runs and bike rides
ended on this shady, tree-lined hill. It was only about a quarter mile long,
but the incline made it a challenge. My goal each day was to ride to the top
without being forced to stand up on the pedals. At the time I was in good shape
and was making it to the top fairly consistently.

But not that
day.

Half-way up the
hill I was so weak and light-headed that I was forced to get off my bike and
sit down for a few minutes. Normally it would have taken me less than two
minutes to get home from that point. Thirty-five minutes later I was still
trying to get there. I had to lean all of my weight on the bike to wheel my
failing body home, stopping every few hundred feet to gather more strength.
When I got home I sat on the couch dazed while my roommates tried to help.
Martha came in first.

“Erin, you
feeling alright?”

In the spring of
1996, La Jolla was the perfect backdrop for a wonderfully easy life. My parents
were still footing the bill while I made my way through school. Classes were
easy and the beach was close by. My last three years at the University of
California, at San Diego I shared a three-story condo with six girls. Each year
we had a different group of girls paying the rent. Every summer some of the
girls would move out and new ones would move in, which made it the perfect
place for me.

With that many
people coming and going I could stay unnoticed, well-hidden. Martha was the
only girl to live with me for all three years and one of the only ones who
didn't let me fade entirely into the background. She was consistent and
reliable, not one to add drama to any situation.

“I don't know,”
I tried to answer. She sat down beside me trying to assess the situation.

“What happened?”

I did my best to
relay the story in my confused state.

“Maybe you were
just working out too hard. Here have some licorice; maybe you just need some
sugar.”

If she only knew
that sugar was exactly what was killing me. I recovered after about an hour and
moved on. I spent the next few days trying to explain away what happened. I was
sick a week before. I wasn’t a hundred percent yet. I went too hard too soon.

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